Author: Warren Hanes

Our speaker this month will be Darryl Jamail. Darryl Jamail is the Commander of the Intelligence Division of the Austin Police Department. He was commissioned in 1994 and has served in numerous assignments including: Patrol Officer, Vehicular Homicide detective, Patrol and Investigations sergeant, Internal Affairs sergeant, and Director of Cadet Training, Commander of Violent Crimes, and Emergency Communications. His current responsibilities include the Austin Regional Intelligence Center, Tactical Intelligence Unit, Real Time Crime Center, and Emergency Planning and Response. He is certified by the Texas Commission on Law Enforcement as a Master Peace Officer and Peace Officer Instructor.

Commander Jamail will be leading us all in a discussion about the role of Austin’s Regional Intelligence Center (ARIC) in local law enforcement. The ARIC is the local tri-county fusion center for Travis, Hays, and Williamson counties, and is involved in the coordination of intelligence gathering operations for 17 Public Safety Agencies. We will look at how modern technology has aided in the collection, consolidation, and analysis of public safety data, and how this analysis is used in modern law enforcement.

https://www.facebook.com/events/354684421537172/

Austin’s Regional Intelligence Center: An Overview

Monday, Nov 14, 2016, 7:00 PM

Capital Factory701 Brazos Street, Suite 1601 Austin, TX

19 Activists Went

Our speaker this month will be Darryl Jamail. Darryl Jamail is the Commander of the Intelligence Division of the Austin Police Department. He was commissioned in 1994 and has served in numerous assignments including: Patrol Officer, Vehicular Homicide detective, Patrol and Investigations sergeant, Internal Affairs sergeant, and Director of Cadet Tr…

Our speaker this month will be Jeff Cardenas. Jeff Cardenas is a technology strategist who is passionate about using technology to democratize power and improve the human experience. Jeff is a McCombs School of Business graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and began his career as a consultant in the Technology practice at Deloitte Consulting. He left Deloitte to pursue his Masters of Science in Technology Commercialization (MSTC) at UT so that he could learn precisely how to grow a business that used innovative technology to empower average people to become more politically engaged. This effort led to the creation of ThinkVoting in partnership with Joseph Santori. Jeff also works with Global Commercialization Office at UT Austin and several other startups to help commercialize breakthrough technologies from around the globe and develop strategies and business models to maximize their potential impact. He currently serves as Director of Product Development for Apptronik Systems, a robotics startup based in Austin, TX.

Jeff is going to be talking about and demo-ing ThinkVoting’s The Voting App. The Voting App is a data aggregation tool that gives every voter the Who, What, When, Where, Why and How for every election – Who is on your ballot, What propositions and ballot items are up for a vote, When important voting dates are, Where you are eligible to vote and the way to get there, Why you want to vote for certain candidates and propositions based on your political beliefs, and How to make it to the polls and make an informed decision. Jeff will also talk about bigger issues surrounding the ideas of democratization of information serving as a counteracting force to money in politics, how data aggregation can lower the barrier of time and effort for being an informed citizen and voter, and what remaining hurdles of access to voter data necessitated the creation of The Voting App.

http://thinkvoting.com/

Come and join us for this special election issue of The EFF-Austin Monthly Meetup.

https://www.facebook.com/events/514419948759677/

Technology And Voter Empowerment

Monday, Oct 10, 2016, 7:00 PM

Capital Factory701 Brazos Street, Suite 1601 Austin, TX

10 Activists Went

Our speaker this month will be Jeff Cardenas. Jeff Cardenas is a technology strategist who is passionate about using technology to democratize power and improve the human experience. Jeff is a McCombs School of Business graduate of the University of Texas at Austin, and began his career as a consultant in the Technology practice at Deloitte Consul…

How do technologies extend human capacity and how do they restrain it? What is the positive potential of technology’s amplifying power and what is the negative potential? What holistic development should proceed this amplification? These questions are relevant to responsible engagement with information technologies and the policies surrounding them, but are often missing from conversation in our consumer culture. This consumer culture often includes the people who teach our kids, write our laws, and develop our apps, so what must be done?

When news broke that Facebook was conducting “scientific research” through the alteration of newsfeeds, the mass media and the public broke into a frenzy. People were disturbed that Facebook would intentionally adjust the way personal information between friends and family was delivered. What many did not realize is that their complaint was over a relatively minor adjustment to the relationship-­shaping algorithm that a billion+ people feed and consume each day. Facebook and similar information services shape our intake of social and news information, yet few take the time to consider how the power­-biases affect our lives. In turn, some suggest that conversations like these should be a part of the “liberal arts of the information age.”

Beyond learning how to navigate an interface, the proposed “social study of technology” aims to help individuals develop contextual understanding of technologies and services, in the goal of supporting a largely confused and submissive public. This contextual look at technology can include an economic, technological, and social review of tools and services. The aim of this meetup is to discuss what key digital literacy concepts or facts are missing from popular conversation and education, why they are important, and how we can promote this knowledge. EFF­-Austin has gathered a set of masters in the digital education, policy, rights, and entrepreneurial fields to discuss the matter.

Panel
● Dr. Robert Friedman of Mozilla Foundation
Robert Friedman works to advance the promise of the Internet for learning by supporting and connecting educators and technologists to collaboratively co-create innovative solutions to shared problems of practice and to leverage the Open Web. Robert is the founding Portfolio Strategist for Hive Austin, the newest member of Mozilla’s global family of urban learning networks; he is here to support Austin EdTech innovators with a grant opportunity from the NSF Gigabit Community Fund at Mozilla. A very recent arrival to Austin, Robert hails from Chicago where he cultivated his practice at Hive Chicago and before then, as an educational designer and manager at the Adler Planetarium. Robert also holds a Ph.D. in Astrophysics from his past life as a research scientist.

● Sean Duffy of EdTech Austin and MakerSquare Austin
Sean Duffy is an educator and edtech leader who is passionate about helping to make meaningful change in education through technology and community-building. Sean is the founder of EdTech Austin, co-­founder of EdTech Action and the lead Organizer for Startup Weekend Education in Austin, TX. Currently, Sean is currently responsible for Employer Partnerships and Hiring with Reactor Core and MakerSquare Austin.

● Dr. Sharon Strover of The University of Texas Radio­-TV­-Film
Dr. Strover is the Philip G. Warner Regents Professor in Communication of the Radio-­TV­-Film Department at the University of Texas, where she teaches communications and telecommunications courses and directs the Technology and Information Policy Institute. Some of her current research projects examine local and statewide networks and broadband services; the relationship between economic outcomes and investments in digital media programs in higher education; social media; the digital divide; rural broadband deployment; e-government; telecommunications infrastructure deployment and economic development in rural regions; and market structure and policy issues for international audio­visual industries.

● Jon Lebkowsky of EFF­-Austin and Polycot Associates
Jon Lebkowsky is a web consultant/developer, author, and activist who was the co­-founder of FringeWare, Inc., an early attempt at e-commerce and online community. FringeWare’s email list, called the FringeWare News Network, established an international following for the organization, which also opened a store in Austin, Texas. Along with Nancy White, he co-­hosts the ongoing Virtual Communities Conference, the Blog Conference, and the public Inkwell Conference at the seminal online community, the WELL.

Posts navigation

Your Donations Enable Our Work

We are all volunteers at EFF-Austin and our work is enabled through donations from concerned citizens like you.

Mission

EFF-Austin advocates establishment and protection of digital rights and defense of the wealth of digital information, innovation, and technology. We promote the right of all citizens to communicate and share information without unreasonable constraint. We also advocate the fundamental right to explore, tinker, create, and innovate along the frontier of emerging technologies.